heresy of the free spirit A Prayer for Light (numbered LP, £18.75)

label: Incunabulum

Heresy of the Free Spirit is a trio comprised of Dutch lute player, Jozef Van Wissem and Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalists, Che Chen (of True Primes) on violin, bowed rawap, bass recorder, percussion and tape machines, and Robbie Lee (of Howling Hex, Baby Dee, Brightblack Morning Light) on portative organ, bass recorder, guitar, banjo and electronics. Using early European as well as non-western instruments and electronics, the trio plays arrangements of Van Wissem's lute compositions as well as free improvisations that draw on early music, folk traditions, minimalism and noise. Fully utilizing the extended techniques, unique textures and tuning possibilities of their unusual instruments, the trio use both repetition and silence as ways of entering trance-like states. Their record, "A Prayer for Light" is a radical re-imagining of early European and American primitive music in which the sources are stretched and re-purposed to accommodate free improvisation, extended, repetitive song forms, and tape manipulations. 1/ tell us about the end
2/ a prayer for light 3/ He is in every stone 4/ the soul's true country 5/before all time 6/ all that nature desires 7/ eternal act
8/ tell us about the end ( reprise)